Tag: minute

On the 30th June 2015 an extra second was added to clocks across the world. Seeing as you now have all of this extra time, here’s everything you need to know about the leap second…

The leap second arises because the atomic clocks that we use today are actually more accurate than the earth at time keeping – one million times more accurate to be exact.

Changes in the Earth’s orbit are influenced by a number of factors: from an occasional wobble to a gradual slowing of its rotation. This causes the Earth to speed up and slow down unpredictably and is the reason why we need to add leap seconds.

A total of 27 leap seconds have been added since 1972 when the idea was first introduced.

The last leap second was added at midnight on December 31st 2016, but due to the unpredictability of the Earth’s orbit I can’t actually tell you when the next one will be!

Don’t worry though, all electronic devices are updated automatically so long as they’re connected to the internet.

You can listen to the 2015 announcement with the Naked Scientists here.